LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT.

THE seventh and last volume of this work commences trial Mcember 1826, when the Life qf Napoleon was nearly completed; and closes with the " death and burial," in September 1932. The intermedfate period embraces, in literature, an account of the cit.- com-tances under which SCOTT produced the Tales of a Grand. father, Anne of Geierstein, Demonology, Count Robert of Paris: besides; a great number of minor publieations ; a suppressed epistle of Malagrowther, intended to roll back the title of the Reform Bill excitement ; it couple of novels begun during his last Continental journey, but never completed ; and the commencement of the uni- form issue of his collected wotks. In public events, the chief things which occupied his mind were the Tory secession on the appointment of CANNING to the Premiership,—the morality and probable results of which SCOTT estimated, with sagacity and truth ; Catholic Emancipati:,n,—which he supported, after some hesitation as bringing him in contact with Whigs ; and the Re- form Bill,—whose progress he struggled to arrest with voice and rote, and against which he exposed himself to public hisses and mobbings; the populace at an election at Jedburgh having sur- rounded his carriage, and threatened to "bark Sir Walter"—a phrase which he uttered in his deathbed wanderings. The inci- dents connected with his private life comprise a journey to London and several ercu:sions ; his paper fracas with General GOVRGAUD, in which affair SCOTT had prepared "to go out :" the death of very many friends, and "the death of friendship" between him and his old scivolfellow JAMES BALLANTYN8 the gradual sink- ing of his health; his vain excurion to the Mediterranean in renewal of it; and the sad narrative of his protracted dissolution.

Considered by itself, this volume is not equal in sustainedattrae- tion to several of the others. The numerous letters introduced, and the frequent extracts from the Diaries, partake somewhat of the "too much of one thing ;" especially as many of the letters have no very striking interest in their subjects or composition, and the extracts often consist of commonplace topics, with relict. lion running into reverie. Nor are the incidents of a new or interesting nature; and though they may embrace points which throw a light upon the character of Scow, yet these lie in a very small compass, and are overwhelmed by a multiplicity of words. The chief interest of the volume is confined to the gradual manner in which both the mind and body of SCOTT broke thwn : and the extraordinary way in which habit and strong will enabled hitn to go through Herculean tasks of mental labour, though memory, imagination, and even perception, played him falser and falser, till at last his mind altogether failed, and he seems to have sunk into the complete paralytic. The volume opens with symptoms of this kind, and with the causes which immediately led to them—over-work. That it really killed him, further than as an exciting cause, may be doubted. His father and a brother died of apoplexy ; and before this period he had pains and sensations evidently showing something wrong.

"Formerly, however great the quantity of work he put through his hands, his evenings were almost always reset ved for the light reading of an elbow-chair, or the enjoyment of his family and friends. Now (1826) he seemed to gt udge every minute that was not spent at the desk. The little that he mail of new books, • or for mere amusement, was done by snatches in the course of his meals; and to walk, when he could walk at all, to the Parliament House, and back again through the Prince's Street Gardens, was his only exercise and his only Wan- tion. Every ailment, of whatever sort, ended in aggravating his liniment; and, perhaps, the severest test his philosophy encountered, was the feeling of bodily helplessness that front week to week crept upon hint. The winter, to make bad worse, was a very cold and stormy one. The growing sluggishness of his blood showed itself in chilblains, not only on the feet but the fingers; and his handwriting became more and more cramped and confused."

SCOTT himself seems to have discerned "the corning on of age; and though he struggles on manfully with the tasks which he had set himself, the entries in his Diaty are often narratives of bodily ailments, or mental forebodings, or regrets. The following is from December 1826— another instance of the continuis et quantis longa eenectus plena malis. 't There is some new subject of complaint every moment; your sicknesgs come thicker and thicker—your comforting and sympathizing friends hover iti d fewer, for why should they sorrow for the course of nature'. The recollection of .youth, health, aud uninterrupted powers of activity, neither improved nort enjoyed, is a poor strain of comfort. The best is, the long hilt will arrive. a. last and cure all. This was a day of labour, agtveably. varied by a pain w..hierb. rendered it scarce possible to sit upright. 3Iy journal is getting a vile chum gical aspect. I begin to be afraid of the odd consequences complaints in the days, had stories to tell ; hut death has closed the long

I shall tire of my journal. In my better post equitem are said to produce.

dark avenue upon lore he the and friendships and I look at them as through the arated doer of a burial. place filled ant:monuments of those who were once 71ear to nos ‘vith no in" sincere wish that it may open for me at no distant period, provided such My pans item• ,ho

ae of the heart, and had sometbilig flattering

windtillefirG6deba.rael if in the head, it was from the blow of a bludgeon gallantly vaned awl well paid back. I think I shall not live to the usual verge of il shall never see the threescore and ten, audshall be summed Maim existenete.,

No help for it, and no mutter either."

up:Dtaedcetr is —sir Adam Ferguson breakfasted—one of the few old friends left oat of the number of toy youthful companions. In youth we have many friends perhaps ; in age, companionship is ended, except rarely, 'Mona, few °III

by appeintment. Old men, by a kind of instinct, seek younger associates. osd

w—he listen to their storie: honour their gray Isaita while present, and mimic when ;heir back. are turned," tr • a mid laugh at thieia v the lah of Detember—,, 'rote hard. Last day of an eventful He "nis ohnevil and come good, but especially the courage to endure what For. Ye"; -- uc • vi. be ' • - f her fi It • t the l. t 1 f

tune sends witoout coming a plot or t r ngers. Is no e .18 1 ay o the but to-tnorrow being S lay. we hold our festival to-day. The Fee. year;

as e and we had the usual appliances of and good cheer. Yet

eguurParetnilte the chat-let-wheels of Pharaoh in the Bed Sea, dragged heavily. It must be allowed that the regular recurrenee of annual festivals, among the cum individuals, has, aa life advances, something in it that is melancholy. We like the survivors of some perilous expedition, wounded and weakened

eertiees, mill looking through di ttt inished rankst to think of thoee who are no se Or they are like the feasta of the Coils, in which they held that the pmar and speechless phantoms of the deceased appeared and mingled with the hying. let where shall we fly from vain repining ? or why should we give tap the comfort of seeing our fa ientis, because they can no longer be to us, or we to them, what we once were to each eau ?"

Notwithstanding these and other warnings, lie got on till February 1830, when the first attack of apoplexy occurred. By dint of prompt attendance and a regimen rigidly severe, he was ap- parently restored. In May he worked as hard as ever, on Demon- ology and French history in the Tales of a Grandfather. But the result, as Mr. LOCKHART admits, like the sermons in Gil Bias, smelt of the apoplexy. He retired, too, from his office in the Court of Session ; and giving up his lodgings in Edinburgh, withdrew to Abbotsford. Here he felt more than ever the loss of what he had already alluded 10—companionship; and he had in the complaints, however guarded, of his printer and bookseller, hints which he was yet sensitive enough to seize. The time in the following quotation is the winter following his first attack of apoplexy.

"Affliction, as it happened, lay heavy at this time on tie kind house of Huntly Burn also. The eldest Miss Ferguson was on her deathbed ; and thus, when my wife and I were obliged to move southwards at the beginning of winter, Sir Walter was left almost entirely dependent on his daughter Anne, William Laidlaw, and the worthy doimsties whom I have been naming. Mr. Laidlaw attended him occasionally as amanuensis when his fingers were chilblained, and often dined as well as breakfasted with him ; and Miss Scott well knew that in all circumstances she might lean to Laidlaw with the confidence of a niece or a blighter. "A more difficult and delicate task never devolved upon any man's friend than he had about this time to encounter. He could not watch Scott from hour to hour; above all, he could not Write to his dictation, without gradually, slowly, most reluctantly taking home to his bosom the conviction, that the mighty mind, which he loul worshipped through more than thirty years of inti. macy, had lost something and was daily losing something more of its energy. The faculties were there, and each of them was every now and then displaying itself in its full vigour ; but the sagacious judgment, the brilliaut fancy, the un- rivalled memory, were all subject to occasional eclipse- ' Along the chords the fingers strayed, And an uncertain warbling made.'

Ever and anon he paused and looked round him, like one half waking from a dream, mocked with shadows. The sad bewilderment of his gaze showed a momentary consciousness that, like Sampson in the lap of the Philistine, his strength was passing from him, and he was becoming weak like unto other men. Then came the strong effort of aroused will : the cloud dispersed 38 if before an irresistible current of purer air—all was bright and serene as of old. And then it closed again in yet deeper darkness. "During the early part of this winter, the situation of Ceded and Ballantyne WU hardly less painful, and still more embarrassing. What doubly and trebly perplexed them was, that while the MS. sent for press seemed worse every budget, Sir Walter's private letters to them, more especially on points of busi- ness, continued as clear in thought, and almost so in expression, as formerly; - full of the old shrewdness and firmness and manly kindness, and even of the oil good.bumoured pleasantry. Al t them, except the staggering penmanship, and here and there one word put down obviously for another, there was scarcely any thing to indicate decayed vigour. It is not surprising that poor Ballautyne, in particular, should have shrunk from the notion that any thing was amiss— except the choice of an unfortunate subject, and the indulgence of more than Common carelessness and rapidity in composition. He seems to have done so U he would from some horrid suggestion of the Devil ; and accordingly obeyed his natural sense of duty, by informing Sir Walter, in plain terms, that he con. sidered the opening chapters of Count Robert as decidedly inferior to any thing that had ever before come from that pen. James appears to have dwelt chiefly on the hopelessness of any Byzantine fable." These opinions at last caused the temporary suspension of Count Robert • and Scorr undertook to write the fourth epistle of Malagrowtlier ; hoping, as we guess from an allusion in a letter, (page 255,) to rival the fame and effects of BURKE'S R(Ilec- lions. This vision was, however, dashed by the hard-headed bookseller and the sensitive critic-printer. In an interview at Abbotsford- " The critical arbiters concurred in condemning the production. Udell spoke out: he assured Sir Walter that, from not being in the habit of reading the newspapers and periodical works of the day, he had fallen behind the common rate of information on questions of practical policy ; that the views he was enforcing had been alteady expounded by many Tories, and tri- umphantly answered by organs of the Liberal party; but that, he the intrinsic value and merit of these political doctrines what they might, he was quite cer- tain that to put them forth at that season would be a measure of extreme danger for the author's personal interest ; that it would throw a cloud over his general Popularity, array a hundred active pens against any new work of another class that might soon follow, and perhaps even interrupt the hitherto splendid suc- cess of the Collection on which so much depended. On all these points, Bal- lantyne, though with hesitation and diffidence, professed himself tube of Cadell's Opinion. There ensued a scene of a very unpleasant sort ; but by and by a kind Of compromise was agreed to—the plan of a separate pamphlet with the well- known now de gut, re of Malachi was dropped, and 13allantyne was to stretch his columns so as to find room for the lucubration, adopting all possible means to mystify the pubic 41 to its parentage. This was the understanding whea the confer, nee broke up ; but the ,:nfortunate maisuseript o as soon aftkiwards committed to the dimes. James Itallantyne accompanied the proof-sheet with many m ttttt te criticisms on the conduct as well as expreasion of the argument : the author's temper gave way, and the commentary shared the fate of the text. Mr. Cadell opens a very brief account of this affair with expressing his opi- nion, that • Sir Walter never recovered it ; ' and he ends with an altogether needless apology for his own part in it. Ile did only what was his duty by his venerated friend ; aid he did it, I doubt not, as kindly in manner as in spirit."

W inter ended, spring was melting into sunimer ; and we find him still toiling at Count Robert, and sadly changed in appear- ance.

"‘ Mity 6, 7, S.—Here is a precious job. I have a formal remonstrance from these critieal people, Ballantyne and Cadell, against the last volume of Count Robert, iihieh is within a sheet of being finialieti. I suspect theit opinion will he found to coincide with that of the public ; at least it is not very different 1 my own. The blow is a stunning one, I suppose, for I scarcely feel it. It is singular, but it comes with as little surprise as it' I had a remedy ready ; yet, God knows, I am at sea in the dark, and the vessel leaky, I think, into the bar- gain. I cannot conceive that I should have tied a knot with my tongue which my teeth cannot untie. We shall see. I have suffered terribly. that is the truth, rather in body than in mind ; anti I often wish I could lie down and sleep without waking. But I will tight it out if I eau. It would argue too great an attachment of consequence to my literary labours to sink under critical clamour. Did I know how to begin, I would begin again this very day, al- though I knew I should sink at the end. After all, this is but fear and faint- ness of heart, though of another kind from that which trembleth at a loaded pistol. My bodily strength is terribly gone ; perhaps may mental too.' " On my arrival, (May loth, ) I found Sir Walter to have rallied considerably ; yet his appearance, as I first saw him, was the most painful sight I had ever then seen. Knowing at what time I might be expected, he had beets lifted on hot pony, anti advanced about half a mile on the Selkirk road to meet me. Ile moved at a foot pace, with Laiiilaw at one stirrup, and his forester Swanston (a fine fatter, who did all he could to replace Toin Purdie) at the other. Abreast was old Peter Illathieson on horseback, with one of my children astride before him on a pillion. Sir l'alter had had his head shaved, and wore a silk nightcap under his blue bonnet. All his garments hung loose about him ; his countenance was thin anti haggard, and there was an obvious distortion in the muscles of one cheek. His look, however, was placid, his eye as bright as ever, perhaps brighter than it ever was in health ; he smiled with the value affection- ate gentleness ; and though at first it was not easy to understand every thing he said, he splie cheerfully anti manfully. " Ile had resumed, and was try log to recast his novel. All the medical ;nen had urged him, by every argument, to abstain from any such attempts; but he smiled on them in silence, or answered with some jocular rhyme. One note has this postscript—a parody on a sweet lyric of Burns's-

. Dour, dour, aml client was Ito, Door slut eiilent hut and ben, Dour against their Writ.) -water. And eident on the Brawl' pen.'

He told me that in the winter he had more than once tried writing with his own hand, because he had no longer the same " pith and birr " that formerly rendered dictation easy to him ; but that the experiment failed. He was now sensible he could do nothing without Laidlaw to hold " the Bramah pen; " adding, " Willie is a kind clerk ; I see- by his looks when I ant pleasing him, and that pleases me." And, however the cool critic may now estimate Count Robert, no one who then saw the author could wonder that Laidlaw's preva- lent feeling in writing thwe pages should have been admiration. Under the full consciousness that he hall sustained three or four strokes of apoplexy or palsy, 'or both combined, and tortured by various attendant ailmento, cramp, rheumatism in half his joints, daily increasing lameness, and now of late gravel, (which was, though last, not least,) he retained all the euergy of Lis will, nod struggled tnaufttlly against this sea of troubles."

It would be painful to pursue this theme further in detail. His mind was darkened with fears of madness; and at one of the consultations of physicians in London, be suspected that this danger was the subject of' inquiry. Latterly he hail a notion that his debts were paid off. During his last Continental journey he was confused and forgetful, with the look of a paralytic ; and when he seemingly rallied for a few (lays on his return to Abbots- ford, his memory was found to be so decayed, that he mistook favourite poem of CRABBE'S for a new production, and half- chuckled at, half-deprecated, the effect it would produce upon 'fintay, who had been dead two years before. The scene naw rapidly closed- " As I was dressing on the morning of Monday the 17th of September, Nicol- son came into my room, and told me that his master had awoke in a state of composure and consciotisneas, and wished to see me immediately. I found him entirely himself, though in the last extreme of feebleness. His eye was clear and calm, every trace of the will fire of delirium extinguished. " Lockhart," he said, " I may have but a minute to speak to you. My dear, be a good man, be virtuous, be religious, be a good man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here." He paused ; and I said, " Shall I tend for Sophia and Anne ? " No," said he, " don't disturb them. Poor souls ! I know they were up all night : God bless you all." With this he sunk into a vet y tranquil sleep ; and, indeed, he scarcely afterwards gave any sign of con- sciousness, except for an instant, on the arrival of his sous. Itiey, on learning that the scene was about to close, obtained anew leave of absence from their posts ; and both reached Abbotsford on the 19th. About half-past one p. m., on the 21st of September, Sir Walter breathed his last, in the presence of all his children. It was a beautiful day, so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still, that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle tipple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was ,listinetly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes."

The burial is described forcibly and clearly ; and a concluding chapter gives a just but not particularly happy estimate of Scores character. To this is added an account of his surviving family, a brief statement of his pecuniary affairs, and of the various sub- scriptions raised to do him honour, as well as a list of the portraits for which he sat.

In his parting preface, Mr. LOCKHART takes occasion to mention some slight errors, which have been rectified by his correspon- dents. He has also a sort of defensive statement against his objectors. One point concerns a charge "that he has wilfully distorted the character and conduct of other men, for the purpose of raising SCOTT at their expense ; " an accusation hardly borne out by internal evidence, but respecting which we want sufficient data to pronounce a decided opinion. Another relates to his candid revelation of Scorf s affairs; for which he takes no credit, as too many were acquainted wit li the particulars to allow cf secrecy being effectually preserved. The last, and the most important, is a de- fence of the length of the book : upon which, to speak candidly, we think Mr. LOCKHART is not convincing. It may be true, that if " SCOTT really was a great man, his lire deserves to be given in much detail.' It may also be true, that no one would be sorry to 'possess a detailed biography of any first-class man of a former time;" that any observer, even PEPYS, with great opportuni- ties of mixing in society, will produce a work of interest ; and that SCOTT, in addition to being a shrewd observer, was also a character in himself. Conceding all this, it may yet be, that the present work is too much detailed ; that particulars relating to a former time have a singularity and value not applicable to an age which voluntarily turns itself inside out for the world to look at ; or that, whatever may be their value, their interest is dimi- nished by being out of place. And, in despite of Mr. LOCKHART'S argument, we still think his book rather the materials of a life, than a life in the highest sense. The "elaborate process of distilling and concentrating the pith and essence," of which Mr. LOCKHART speaks with something like contempt, is the business not only of a biographer or his- torian, but of every author. The end of all art, of whatever kind, is to present the linpression which the reality itself would convey, heightened by imagination, expounded, where exposition is ad- missible, by sagacity, and "preserved for use." Much, as Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS observes, of the greatest works of art, is really commonplace ; and most of the individual transactions of individual tnen are entirely of this character. The deaths or the dinners of their friends, their letters of condolence, or compli- ment, or business, or playfulness, have in general little interest beyond the time of their occurrence, or the circle to which they vete addressed. The attraction of such things, even to ourselves, fades away with lapse of years ; and the eye runs vacantly over a batch of our own letters and journals, unless in some peculiar moods, or when we meet with something which affected us at the time. The things that touched us the nearest, are, however, frequently those in which others feel little interest ; and those things which indicate character or feeling either lie in a small compass, or admit of conveyance in brief terms. We would not banish details, or the oliginal materials of letters and diaries, from biography ; but we would limit their use to specimens or impor- tant characteristics. And both these points are greatly exceeded by Mr. LOCKHART; with the addition of another defect—that in single scenes, lesser personages are often made as conspicuous as the leading character.

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that this fulness gives us a much closer insight into the character of SCOTT, than the "pith and essence" might have conveyed, unless " concentrated " by a great master. It would be as useless to deny, that whilst few men would have come out of such an ordeal better than SCOTT, the fancied or reputed character suffers upon the whole when compared with the actual man. The amiable temper, the equal- mindedness of the Author of Waverley, was a constant theme ; but in reality, Scotus, like Diabolus, was only good-tempered when pleased. The flood of success which attended him through the first half century of his life, furnished little occasion for display- ing any of the common infirmities of' men in this respect; but it occasionally peeps out in private matters; and though he continued sociable with JEFFREY after the critic bad given a se- verely just estimate of his poetry in the Edinburgh, yet he took it in dudgeon en famine, and Immediately set about getting up a rival in the Quarterly. His booksellers, who doubtless knew

him well, seemed unwilling to hint at any falling-off in his intermediate novels; and when a stern necessity compelled them in later times to state their opinions, the truth fell harshly on his ear, and operated unpleasantly both upon temper and mind. The notion that politics never influenced his conduct is also dis- sipated,—a greater political zealot never existed ; and his zeal, strange to say, was undiminished by time and a wide worldly expe- rience, though the kindness of individual Whigs, during his mis- fortunes, mollified his furor for a time. His kindly disposition, in his better mood, has not been exaggerated ; but there is a

letter, written in reference to poor TERRY after his ruin and para- lysis, which, though full of sound advice, has a plain and per-

Vading under-current of "keep him away from Abbotsford." His letters to "high people" display a forced and constrained manner, springing perhaps from his feelings of feudal reverence; but he bad a healthy disregard of fine and exclusive society. He found and thought its frequenters bores ; and felt the greatest enjoyment in the natural jollity of his primitive equals, or of per- sons somewhat below that grade.

The fulness of the present work also displays in a high degree SCOTT'S vast capabilities of mental labour. In this, all things

considered, he seems to have stood alone. The mere mechanical task of penmanship was not small; but when we couple the quan-

Litities with the nature of his productions—not abridgments or re- productions, but original works—look at the readable nature of every thing which flowed from his pen—and bear in mind his unceasing manner of composition, without pause or thought, as if be were a literary machine, or a man doomed to write—he appears amiracle. The only approach to him is in the case of VOLTAIRE. In his personal character, the passions or feelings of the man, like the writings of the author, seem to have been deficient in depth. Scorr had in him none of the intensity which characterizes the hero of tragedy. On the contrary, he exhibits fhe hardness of heart of a man of the world. The death of old friends, unless it interfered with his passing comforts, or operated as a warning, seems to have see. duced upon him the effect of a mere occurrence. Nor had he mil -II sympathy with the sentiment of others. He speaks, in his Distco of BALLANTYNE'S prolonged grief on the death of his wife, " feelings nearly allied to contempt ;" and he seems to have hada compunction in quarrelling with old friends, when his exalted° position should have lifted him above the reach of petty prosoea, tions. His break with JAMES I3ALLANTYNE--" the al school. fellow "—the man " who sinks his own ruin in °einem platinz —is only excusable on the plea of failing health and the querrn. lousness of growing years on both sides, with the genus &rite. bile on the part of the author. This absence of feeling Serer was accustomed to fancy stoicism. But it was not philosophy quelling the deepest feelings of humanity, but a humanity some what superficial, and which had got pretty well case.harilened by time, prosperity, and self-opinion. Most kings, and GEORGE the Fourth especially, have been perfect disciples of ZENO in this line, Of Scores religion, which had been questioned, Ms. LOCKHART speaks in cautious and rather general terms. But in this last volume, (page 107,) there is an explicit avowal of belief in Chris- tianity, grounded on its moral effects. In more than one pltlee, SCOTT avows or intimates his conviction of a future state of being ; and when, on his last return to Abbotsford, he expressed a wish to be read to, and Mr. LOCKHART inquired what book, be answered, "There is but one." With particular doctrines, or even with the broad discriminating mysteries of the Christian faith, he does not seem to have troubled himself.

Scores " ruling passion," as Mr. LOCKHART truly points out, was a national feeling of clanship, stimulating him to be the founder of a "family," and operating to an extent that to a Southern seems little short of rnonotnania. His biographer describes bin as slighting his own greatness, and that of every one else, when put in comparison with the district grandeur of the Duke of Rue- et-encl.', as the head of the clan of Seen. To become the origin of a sort of independent offshoot of this father of the Scorr Bor- derers—to be known hereafter as the first " SCOTT of Abbotsford" —was the stimulus of his labours, the source of his troubles, the prompter of his huckstering iii pushing his own busi- ness whilst he appeared as a disinterested party, and perhaps of the mystery in which he involved himself. Mr. LOCKHART intimates that one reason of his concealing his connexions with CONSTABLE and BALLANTYNE., might be the rule of the Scotch bar, that none of its members should be connected with trade, and the strong prejudice of Edinburgh gentility Oil the same point. It is equally probable that he wished and hoped for its burial in profound secrecy, lest it should inter- fere with the future reputation of his house. All Boiderers were cattle-stealers, and some of then' gallows-birds ; but it would jar sadly against their feelings to couple "printer and publisher" with the "first Scott of Abbotsford." Perhaps, too, it was some pride of this kind that drove him upon his last stupendous exer- tions. But this was at all events an honest pride ; and his con- duct so happily combined the most rigid justice with the loftiest and nicest sense of honour—the results were so wonderful in an intellectual sense, and the success so great in a worldly view— that the whole is too rare and too precious a thing to be decom- posed for analysis in the critical alembic. The true moral of tragedy is to show that immoderate desires, improperly pursued, carry with them their own punishment, in the miseries of their conduct and the fate of their end. And such is the moral of the Life of SCOTT. With an extraordinary genius, an unrivalled popularity, a success both in mind and waffttahirs that might have removed him beyond anxiety of any kind- " honour, love, obedience, troops of friends"— and with, more than all, a temperament formed for enjoyment, he aimed to achieve a silly object by tortuous means; and not only failed of success, but disturbed his quiet for years, ruined his fortune, and hastened his death.

We have not time or opportunity for a full examination of SCOTT as a writer : but this may be briefly said, that, tested by the highest standard, he was a second-class man—one who op& rates directly only upon his own time, not one who instructs and influences many ages and nations. The first great intel- lectual cause of this will be found in the nature of his genius, or, which is much the same, the manner in which he displayed it,—dealing with local and perishable fashions and customs, instead of the universal passions of man. The first formal cause of his future neglect will be the multitude of his works; not merely because posterity, occupied with its own contempora- ries, cannot spare time to peruse many volumes of the past, but because he who writes so much, and currente calamo, can- not give to any one work the concentrated strength and felicitous finish—the great value and small bulk—essential to durability and perpetual use. Of the second class of authors, however, Scorr unquestionably stands at the head ; and but for VOLTAIRE, would stand alone. Although so totally different in forms, and in personal character, there is in essentials a striking resem- blance between the great Frenchman and the great Scotchman. Each was satisfied with the shortest road to a reputation, and contented himself with using for that purpose the most excitable feelings or prejudices of the age. But VOLTAIRE took the lead in (for he did not create) a disposition to test by ridicule or speculation all kinds of forms and received opinions ; while Scorr laid hold of a taste for the manners, customs, and super- gains of the olden time, which had become perceptible years .before to the keen glance of JOHNSON* and GOLDSMITH, in the nco uragement given to PERCY'S Reliques, and which at the

e

time of SCOTT s appearance as an author was running riot in pursuit of German absurdities. The matter of both writers

was collected from the readiest sources; it was sometimes false,

often indifferent, and mostly common; but the style was in- variably clear, sparkling, and animated, and it seemed as if nothing

unreadable could drop from their pens. The celebrity, or, to put

it with more exactness, the fashionable celebrity of VOLTAIRE, excelled that of SCOTT: had readers been as numerous in his age, his literary gains (for the French wit would never have embarked

in trade to found a family) might have been nearly as great as

those of the Scotchman. With posterity, VOLTAIRE perhaps

etinds the better chance ; for although the bulk of his produc- tions repose in the library, awl his name and authority have greatly diminished, yet the best of his works are likely to retain their hold with many readers; fur, being witty, they were of ne- cessity condensed ; and they instruct us in life and human nature— of a hard, low, and worldly kind, it is true—but still they point a

sort of moral, or inculcate deep truths ; which SCOTT with all his power and healthiness of mind rarely does. After all, we must remain what Nature made us; and it is doubtful, if both had written less and with more pains, whether they would have written better.

• It is needless to quote JOHNSON'S parodies in ridicule of the old ballads; acid the vitiated taste of the public, in this and other nonmatural ways, was a pretty frequent complaint with GOLDSMITH.